


Rose Puppetry

by im_the_king_of_the_ocean



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/F, Horror, Invasion, Rebellion, The Mechanisms-Typical Violence, War, roughly inspired by once upon a time (in space)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26891806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_the_king_of_the_ocean/pseuds/im_the_king_of_the_ocean
Summary: A century ago or so, Atlas set out to conquer the world.  Penny was built to be a spy, an infiltrator meant to find weaknesses in Vale's defenses before the invasion.She did.  Then she fell in love.  And rebelled against the kingdom that had created her.
Relationships: Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose
Comments: 20
Kudos: 61





	1. Rebel Flight

Blinding sunlight glares into everyone’s eyes as the drop ship ascends above the heavy cloud of pollution fog ever present over Mantle and cuts into the crisp, clear, blue sky.The men among them wince and shield their eyes.The rewired Mantle Street Soldier Units (MSSU-132s) don’t react at all.Penny adjusts her eyes’ aperture until she can see perfectly again.

It’s been a while since any of them have seen daylight.Mantle’s manufacturing plants create and maintain a thick smog that tends to absorb anything but rain too hard to be stopped.Atlas Prime’s bulking shadow, too, stops most any light from reaching its sister city’s streets.

Their pilot cloaks their ship and gives Penny her cue.She begins emitting radio interference that should make them undetectable to Atlesian scanners.They fly toward the dominating stronghold in the sky.No one who can breath does so very loudly, as if they’ll be heard over the increasingly loud whir and whine of Prime’s great Flight Engines.

Atlas Prime, formerly just the City of Atlas, can be considered one of the greatest marvels in the world.An entire city in the sky, kept aloft by the largest, most powerful steam engines to ever exist.A century ago, its founders built Atlas as a symbol of innovation, one meant to inspire future generations to look up and dream of what they could accomplish if only they applied themselves.Though their aspirations and intent were genuine, those distinguished inventors failed to take into account the sheer amount of resources maintaining the City of Atlas would require as it grew.

In the beginning, historical documents claimed, Atlas’s needs led to an economic boom in Mantle, as money flowed freely from the flying city to pay for everything it took.Then, something (the relinquishing of the Schnee Dust Company from its founder into his son-in-law’s hands, a handful of brave historians who no one has heard from since, claimed) _changed_.

Atlesians, growing content and complacent in their power, started to hoard their wealth.They paid less, demanded more, and drove independent, Mantle-run businesses into the ground when they refused to comply with Atlesian wishes.It wasn’t long until Mantle became little more than a collection of mass production factories kept firmly under Atlas’s thumb after that.

The hunger of Atlas, though, is known to this day to be an insatiable beast.Mantle could provide it with building materials and fuel, but their shared location in bitter Solitas meant food beyond what arctic creatures could be hunted or the scarce few crops that would grow in their soil was an impossibility.

Thus, the Atlesian Conquest began.

The elderly, Mantle’s grandmothers and grandfathers, when they have a rare moment of rest, will sit and rasp out the story of the day Beta Atlas detached from Prime and flew off into the horizon in the direction of Vacuo.Not to return before news of the invasion into the desert kingdom filtered back to Mantle’s streets.

Beta Atlas was only the first of the Atlesian war machines.Since its launch, fortresses too numerous to count have been built and flown off to conquer Remnant.Every now and then, reports of new victories or surrenders will play on the nightly news radio broadcast.

Vacuo remains stubbornly independent, despite all the General King of Atlas’s best efforts.Although, it’s rumored Vacuo’s once fabled oasis have all been drained and little more of worth remains in the desert.Thus, without anything of too much interest to keep it, Atlas’s attention has turned elsewhere. 

Mistral signed a treaty with Atlas as quickly as it could, and thus remains untouched by war.No one knows how long that will last.No one in Mantle believes it will.The people of Mistral, Mantle’s inhabitants whisper amongst themselves, are fooling themselves if they think Atlas will let anyone remain out of its complete, dominating control for long.

However, that’s a fight for another time.Currently speaking, Atlas’s eye is transfixed upon Vale, where its conquest has met strong resistance.Despite having lesser technology available to them, the Huntsmen Army of Vale have fought Atlesian forces back again and again.Stories have spread about Vale’s legendary huntsmen and huntresses and their clever tactics.They might not be stronger or more powerful than Atlas’s robotic forces, but they’re definitely _smarter_.Unpredictable.

For the first time in a very long time, there’s whispers of hope that something might be able to stop Atlas.

Penny finds and clasps her hand around the gold locket she wears around her neck, without taking the trinket out from under her shirt.It would shimmer and shine and draw too much attention if she were to do that.But, holding onto it grounds her, reminds her of her mission.

Penny once believed in Atlas.She was built to carry out its will.Sent to Vale long before the first flying war fortress, and disguised as a regular, human girl.Her mission was to observe and spy.She’d been programmed with curiosity, to learn as much as she could.And she had.Too much, in fact.

For her entire existence up to her deployment in Vale, all Penny knew was solitude.Unlike the rest of Atlas’s automated army, she wasn’t mass-produced.Penny is the singular product of blueprints uncovered in what was revealed to be the long lost workshop of Pietro Polendina, one of the last Great Minds of Atlas.Whereas many only saw her blueprints as the frivolity of a man who didn’t live in a time of war, General King Ironwood himself had seen _potential._ He’d ordered Penny’s creation, given her weaponry upgrades, cared for her, kept her safe as his ‘secret weapon.’Then, the day had come where he told her it was time to fulfill her destiny.

She’d been ecstatic.She was finally getting to go out and See The World and help bring an entire kingdom into the safety and security of Atlas’s rule, wasn’t it wonderful?

It was.For a time.

Vale is a beautiful kingdom.Rich and vibrant in ways Penny never could have dreamed after only knowing a greasy, barely illuminated lab as home.She’d loved exploring.Finding and studying in the great libraries open to all.Wandering around outdoors where the sky isn’t a perpetual exhaust gray, where birds sing, and where little multi-colored butterflies flutter everywhere.

It was chasing after such a butterfly that Penny had stumbled into someone and the direction of her life had forever changed.She learned what it was like to have a friend in the following days.To not constantly feel _alone._

To fall in love.

Here now, in the rebellion drop ship, Penny wishes she could open her locket.Just so she can see Ruby’s face again.Sure, if everything goes well on their mission, she will see Ruby again by day’s end.

But nothing is ever certain, especially in war.

“Get ready,” the pilot tells the rescue team.“We’re arriving at the drop point.”

Penny braces herself.Regardless of their success probability (currently hovering at a frustrating low 67%), she will do everything she can to save Ruby.

Because she loves her dearly.

And because it’s Penny’s fault she was captured in the first place.


	2. The Path to You

The pilot expertly navigates the drop ship around Prime’s Flight Engines.The sharp breeze created by the churn of the engines’ massive propellers whips Penny’s hair around her head.One error here on part of the pilot and they’ll all be dead.Their ship ripped to shreds by the blades and those of them lucky enough to survive _that_ left to plunge back down to Mantle.

With the exception, of course, of Penny, who has flight capabilities of her own. 

So far, she’s been lucky enough not to be the sole survivor of an operation.Penny dearly hopes that day will never come, although she’s constantly aware of the possibility that it _might_.

Thankfully, they make it around the Flight Engines in one piece and steer up towards one of the unauthorized entrances to Atlas’s Prime’s notorious Underbelly.

To build their city, Atlas’s founders ripped a great mass of earth from the ground and launched it into the sky.In the gaping hole it left in its wake, Crater Town, the poorest of Mantle’s slums quickly grew.Populated by desperate people displaced when the very earth beneath their homes was yanked away and lifted to where they could not hope to reach, it remains a harsh and bitter place to live.Though most of Crater Town’s inhabitants are honest folk just trying to eke out a decent enough life, the crime lords have long since settled in and taken control.

Up above, in Atlas, Crater Town’s twin quickly formed.Sure, on the surface, Atlas may be an elegant, gleaming, polished city, but it still needs workers to constantly make it so.When they realized this problem (and that absolutely no one amongst themselves was going to just volunteer for the unsavory, menial jobs), the highest ranking of Atlas society started offering employment to Mantle’s working class.In return for their hard labor, those Atlas’s creation displaced could come up and live out their very own Atlesian Dream.

Given the alternative was staying somewhere where, if the various gangs’ enforcers didn’t kill you for not paying your debts on time first, lung sickness or another disease quickly would, almost all the offers were quickly snapped up.However, instead of being embraced into Atlesian society, Crater Town folk soon found themselves shunted off into an out-of-sight, out-of-mind underground city carved out of the very soil stolen from them.The Underbelly.

Life in Mantle may not have been good, but the Underbelly’s inhabitants consider their lot worse.Their hopes had been raised on the prospect of achieving a better life for themselves and their children.Instead they were told to rot in a dark, twisting, labyrinthine city directly beneath the Atlesian streets they keep shining clean day in and day out.

The drop ship reaches its destination.No one who isn’t looking specifically for discrepancies would be able to recognize the section of Atlas’s underside as fake.The false cover slides out of place to reveal a gaping tunnel entrance into the rock.One by one, Penny and her team climb up out of their ship and into it.They don’t stop moving until they reach a small chamber some distance inside the tunnel. 

A couple members of the Rebellion’s Atlas cell are there to meet them when they arrive.They hand off the fake uniforms Penny and her team will need silently, and then depart for their own assignments.Atlas surveillance tech shouldn’t work this deep in the Underbelly, but the city prides itself on its innovations.Their mission is too important to jeopardize by saying the exact wrong thing and this being the one time the drones successfully made it this deep.

As she changes into the maintenance worker clothes, Penny lets her mind briefly wander to happier times.Sunlit days in Vale.

Her friendship with Ruby had started out as just another part of her mission.What better way to learn about Vale was there than getting to know one of the locals, after all?

Penny can’t say she knows the exact moment when things changed.She’s tried time and time again to pin it down exactly.Was it their visit to the fair?The movie theater?The way Ruby laughed or the way her eyes sparkled?What was it about her that made Penny feel like she never had before?That made her want to never return to Atlas.That made her stop sending her reports back because she was far happier in Vale.

With Atlas so far away, Penny had thought, they wouldn’t be able to reach her.Her greatest mistake will now forever remain underestimating the reach of the General King.

For all she can’t remember the precise moment she fell in love with Ruby, Penny does certainly remember the night—the last one she ever had in the cute, little apartment she and Ruby called home—that they came for her.She remembers the melody of the song she and Ruby were listening to on the radio.It had been a slow, sweet, song.Penny can’t remember the words.They’d been too busy dancing, getting lost in each other’s embrace, to listen closely.

There’d been a knock at the door; the briefest of warnings.A canister shattered the window as it flew in, popped open, and let out a cloud of knockout gas to invade their home.

Penny had been restrained before she could make the first move to fighting back.The knockout gas didn’t—couldn’t—work on her, but she’d watched in horror as Ruby inhaled it, her eyelids fluttered, and she crumpled to the ground.

That was the last Penny ever saw Ruby before a black hood was pulled over her head and she was forcibly shut off.

Penny came to in Atlas, in the throne room specifically.Ironwood lauded her for her ploy.For gaining the trust of a Vale huntress.For knowing the General King would send the AceOps, his right hand, for her when she severed contact.For rightly assuming they’d capture the huntress they found with her.For delivering what they needed to win the war once and for all.

She would be a hero for her actions, he said.

Penny fled the first chance she got.

Finding where Ruby was imprisoned was much more difficult than she thought it would be.Penny’s love wasn’t in any of the usual prisons, or even the handful of secret ones Penny knew of.Eventually, she caught wind of the rumor that Ironwood had given Ruby to his top scientist, Dr. Watts, for reasons no one seemed to know.Not that they really needed to.

Everyone knows the name Arthur Watts.The boogeyman in almost bedtime story told to overly rambunctious children.He may not be a threatening figure when he makes the rare public appearance, but he’s responsible, parents will warn their offspring in hushed tones, for the monsters who they never, ever want to cross.

Hazel, the Law Enforcer who no longer seems able to feel pain after an extended stay in Watts’s lab.A giant of a man with the ability to inject Dust directly into his body.He’ll offer candy to children and speak to them in a kind-sounding voice to get them to let him in their homes.Then, once he’s inside, he’ll lay waste to their families.Just look at what happened to the Pines after the Enforcers were tipped off that they were spies leaking intel to King Ozpin in Vale.

No one speaks the name of Tyrian Callows in fear simply saying it will summon him to their location.Technically a wanted criminal, but one who’s never been arrested.At least not for very long.Sometimes either a green or overly cocky detective will try to bring him in.Some even have managed to get him into a prison cell.The next morning will see them (and anyone in the general vicinity of the jail, if Tyrian’s in the mood, which he always seems to be) dead, poisoned wounds scarring their chests.

A couple years back a homegrown protest movement against Ironwood started in Mantle.In the first week or two, almost every leadership figure within it was dead, marked by those same slash marks.Sure, there’s no hard evidence that Tyrian did it under orders from Atlas, but when one takes into account the law’s ineffectiveness against him and his shiny, expensive-looking, Atlesian-made, prosthetic scorpion tail, they figure they have enough of the picture to come to the right conclusion.

Then there’s Cinder Fall.The less said about her the better.Some say she’s the creation of a much darker, much more sinister force than Arthur Watts.No one ever wants to imagine what that _is._ So they say, her dark arm, whatever disturbing substance its made out of, originated in Watts’s lab.Sure, it’s still a nightmare, but a lesser one.

And those are just the recent ones.The most _well-known_ ones.People disappear off the streets sometimes and then something similar to them will appear out of Watts’s lab.

He’s not someone Penny can take on.At least not on her own.

Penny was recognized immediately by the Rebellion’s leader, Robyn Hill (one of the few survivors of Tyrian’s protester massacre), when she found them.Not many knew of Penny’s existence or what her face looked like, but Robyn is sharp, clever.She hadn’t survived this far by _not_ knowing this things.There wasn’t trust between them, not in the beginning.But Penny was honest about her motives, what she wanted out of all this.

Penny hadn’t been sure what was best for everyone when she stood on the Rebellion’s doorstep.She was still struggling with separating her own sense of self from what Atlas intended for her.She could not say she was joining the Rebellion because she truly aligned with their values (at least, not then, that would come later).But, if they would help her save Ruby, she would swear her life to fight for them.

And so, she had.Until this day, when they finally have their opportunity to raid Watts’s lab and rescue Ruby.

Penny and her team make their way through the Underbelly until they come to one of the service entrances leading into Atlas itself.They pause, each making peace with their lives, before exiting into one of the most beautiful cities to ever exist.


	3. Grimm

No thick, pollution smog billows over Atlas.

As they emerge out from the service tunnel onto the streets, Penny and her team stop to gaze upwards.They don’t have the time to spare, but they can’t help themselves.It’s not often they get to see the sky like this, sprawled out above them like some great, sapphire painting.

Penny grimaces.Beautiful as it is, the sky is a reminder of all that’s been taken from her too.Even after this mission, even if it’s successful, she won’t be able to simply relax and enjoy a peaceful, sunny day.Not so long as she has to always look over her shoulder for the Atlesian Military.

At least she’ll have Ruby back, Penny quietly reminds herself, so, perhaps, being haunted by the ghosts of her past won’t be so horrible.

Setting a determined, brisk pace, Penny leads her team down the street.She glances at each and every person they pass.Sure, they have a well-prepared cover story for why they’re there and what are likely some of the best fake IDs in existence, but those things were attained for the eventuality of them being stopped and questioned.They do nothing to _prevent_ that happening in the first place.

The first pair of eyes that avert their gaze when they accidentally look in Penny and her team’s direction she doesn’t think much of.The second, and then the third, though, indicate a _pattern_.No one wants to notice them, Penny realizes.She observes as fancily-dressed Atlesians see them, and then abruptly cross the immaculate street.Businessmen in finely tailored suits push past like Penny and her team don’t exist.Elegant ladies in silky dresses huff and avert their gaze as if coming marginally close to resting their eyes on _maintenance_ workers will sully them.

Penny and her team are invisible.

It shouldn’t bother her.It makes traversing the streets of the city unchallenged that much easier.Still, an uncomfortable feeling settles in Penny’s gut.She remembers a time, long ago now, when she was treated like an object.A robotic toy with no mind of its own that simply did as instructed.One that could be flaunted like a trophy.

Maybe not today, because today she needs to be focused and covert, but one day, _one day_ , Penny will make sure they see her.They really _see_ her.

Atlas Academy rises above the rest of the city, a verifiable stronghold of sleek, ivory towers, unmarked by the dirt and grime of the world that sustains them.Originally, the academy was meant to be a symbol of brilliance at the heart of Atlas.The crowning jewel of the flying marvel itself.A declaration of all the greatness that Atlas encourages its people to aspire to. 

To some, namely the heirs and heiresses of the wealthy elite who can afford to enroll them as students, the academy remains so.

Maybe once the less fortunate believed in the school, too.But then, the gates were closed to them.Access to the hallowed halls where so much knowledge lies in wait restricted, unless they first enlist and fight in Atlas’s war of conquest.After all, the wealthy elite fund the academy.Why should the mostly the poor of Mantle be given the same privileges, without offering something in return?

A small handful of such hopeful, would-be students lived through their tours of duty and were granted a place at the academy for their service.Many more did not.

Stories are told in Mantle, of the ones who don’t come back, and the hardships faced by the ones who do.Very few make the attempt anymore.Not that the General King needs them.Years have passed since he ordered the first unit of Atlesian Knights.The Atlesian Army is far more robotic than man these days.

Penny and her team stop in a forgotten library.Tomes of their kingdom’s history before Atlas rose sit in wait, gathering dust around them.Seeing these books makes Penny sad.Since joining the Rebellion, she’s met so many who would be eager to come here, read them, and learn from them.She doesn’t have much time to ruminate on the books, though.They’re only here for a brief stop, a final preparation before their move to infiltrate Watts’s laboratory.

Penny checks her connection to each of the daggers she has on her person and their battery charges.All of them, as expected, are primed and ready to go.The daggers are far smaller than the blades Penny uses as part of her main combat weaponry system, but far easier to conceal and faster to activate if the need should arise.

Penny thinks back to that last night with Ruby, and how her swords had been far away, on the other side of the room, useless, during the attack.She forged her daggers at the first opportunity she got after joining the Rebellion, and seldom takes them off her person.Never again will she be caught off guard without means to protect herself and the ones she loves.

Once everyone is ready, they set out for the laboratory.

Contrary to the mental image Penny created for herself, the building housing the laboratory of Arthur Watts looks like any other on the Atlas Academy campus.Penny knows this, has always known this in fact, but, since Ruby’s capture, she’s started to think of it as a darker, more sinister place, similar to the villains’ lairs she’s read about in storybooks.A looming castle-esque fortress with intimidating battlements and twisted gargoyles.Not a squat, clean, whitewashed building lording over an out-of-the-way courtyard.

They make their approach, careful not to let the security cameras capture a full view of their faces.Inside the building, there’s a small reception area with a front desk, which an automaton is stationed behind.They hand over their fake IDs, the robot makes an affirmative sort of noise and directs them to an elevator bay.

It’s when they’re riding down, waiting for their lift to finally arrive at their destination, that Penny truly begins to worry about the _ease_ of it all.Sure, Watts’s lab has never had as much security as other sensitive locations at the Academy.The idea anyone would break into a place where, if they were caught, they’d be left at the scientific mercy of its master, has long been considered unbelievable.But, Penny doesn’t think it should be this _easy_ either.They planned for so long, gathered so much intel.To just walk in, find Ruby, and get back out, it doesn’t _feel_ right.

As the elevator dings its arrival at the laboratory level, Penny switches her daggers to ‘combat ready’ mode.

No one’s there when the doors open.No soldiers, robotic or otherwise.No lab techs or assistants.Not even Watts himself.No one prevents them from approaching the heavy steel double doors of the laboratory.Their loud, echoing footfalls go unheard.

Penny stops when she reaches the door.The others stand behind her, waiting for her to make the final decision.She stares at the doors’ gleaming handles, sucks in a sharp breath she doesn’t necessarily need, wraps a hand around the cool metal, and tugs the door open.

The laboratory, surprisingly, is in a state of utter and immaculate cleanliness.Penny blinks at the space, reseting her optical receptors to ensure they’re working correctly.She expected something _grittier_.Bloodstains splashed across surfaces.Pieces of horrific experiments left out to rot.Something to indicate the gruesomeness of what goes on here.But there’s _nothing._ It’s as if Watts simply packed everything up and neatly stored it away.

Well, almost everything.

At the very back of the laboratory, pushed against the wall is a throne-like seat.Given its location in such a place as the lab and its resemblance to the other stools scattered about, it wasn’t built to be of great importance.Someone had gone through the trouble of attaching a back and armrests to it, as well as acquiring thick, deep scarlet, velvet cushions for the person upon it to sit comfortably.

The only indication that that person doesn’t have the power most would assume belongs to someone in such a seat are the clasps firmly locking her wrists and ankles down.Her helplessness doesn’t seem to bother her.The person—a young, _recognizable_ girl—doesn’t try to fight or break free of her bindings.She simply sits on her throne, with her eyes closed, her breathing slow and calm.Waiting.Like a puppet whose master has put its strings to rest for the time being.

Upon her head is a pitch black crown of mechanical spikes and thorns.It is this that Penny’s eyes go to as she approaches, and the blood red ruby precisely centered in it above its wearer’s forehead.The jewel could have been an amazing, priceless treasure, if not taken and used for such a horrid-looking device.Now it is naught more than a cruel mockery.Beauty taken and warped into something deeply unpleasant.

Penny reaches out.Her hand trembles as it closes the distance to Ruby’s cheek.She hesitates, gulps, and then allows her fingers to touch her beloved’s cool skin.The moment Penny makes contact, the spell holding her back breaks.She lets out a relieved, little laugh.She cups Ruby’s cheek fully in her hand and affectionately runs her thumb across it.

“I’m here,” Penny tells Ruby.“I came for you.I’m so sorry.I’m going to get you out of here.”She reaches for the clasps keeping Ruby in place.Before she can touch them, Ruby lifts her head up and away from Penny’s touch.Slowly, almost mechanically, Ruby opens her eyes.

The denial Penny has been able to drown herself in these few, precious moments dissipates completely.She looks into Ruby’s eyes.Rather than the friendly, loving silver she knows so well, bloody crimson irises in a sea of charcoal black gaze back out uncomprehending at her.

“Ruby?”Penny’s voice wavers.She barely manages to keep it from breaking completely.


	4. Rose Red

Let us step away from the scene of a heartbroken mechanical girl as she learns of the fate that has befallen her love.Allow our attention to attend to events so long ago now they risk becoming history.Perhaps, to some, they already are.But the significance of these events should not be diminished or overlooked merely because of the time that has passed since their occurrence.For they shine out like a beacon star, guiding weary travelers home and igniting hope in their hearts.

The Kingdom of Vale is ruled by a kind and just king.One whose compassion is known throughout his own and every other kingdom.Some would consider his Royal Majesty, Ozpin, weak, for the softness of his heart.The wiser are able to recognize the guile behind his gaze.They know Ozpin’s kindness comes not from the naïveté of someone born into a comfortable and luxurious life, but from continuously choosing, after seeing the horrors of the world, to do everything in his power to make it better.

One of the greatest accomplishments of Ozpin’s reign, future texts will claim, is the establishment of his Huntsman Academy.It is not, as most would assume, an institute of military indoctrination like similar-appearing schools established in every single Atlas-controlled territory.The Huntsman Academy does not require its graduates to swear everlasting and unyielding loyalty to its patron royal.All it asks of them is that they should consider going out into the world and lending a hand whenever and wherever they are able.

Though not every single Huntsman or Huntress has chosen to align themselves with such noble goals, enough have that the public perception of the academy’s graduates has become one of legendary heroes.Enough of that perception is true that, when the first overtures of invasion and war spread across Remnant from Atlas, it was those same Huntsmen and Huntresses who willingly rose to come to the aid of their besieged neighbors.

Children in Vale have grown up on stories told of their brave protectors.Of course, the grizzlier details of how the battles go are kept away from their innocent ears.They’ll learn soon enough, the adults murmur amongst themselves.Let the young keep their purity for as long as they can.

Ruby Rose, in a way, was one such child.One of her earliest memories is sitting on her Uncle Qrow’s lap, clutching an expanse of silky white fabric in her small, chubby fists, and listening to him tell the tale of the most daring huntress who ever lived, her mother, Summer Rose.Like other children her age, Ruby was awed by the story given to her.Unlike them, she wouldn’t be so innocent by the end.For it wasn’t just a story, it was also a reason why her mother never came back home.

Ruby was never alone for long in that regard.As war crept closer to Vale’s borders, more and more of Ruby’s peers came to have tales of brave parents who never returned too.Her school even started a program for those orphaned or displaced.That’s how Ruby came to know her childhood friends, Ren and Nora.

Nothing she heard, however, could dissuade Ruby from her dream of following in Summer Rose’s footsteps.She told everyone she came across how she would become a hero, one who would save people _and_ come back home.Not many believed her, but none could bring themselves to try and extinguish the small, flickering fire they saw within her.Such a hopeful thing was rare, and had to be protected.

It came to be that Ruby gained a reputation long before she was ever to be allowed near a battlefield.During her initiation to the Huntsman Academy, she stepped in front of one of her classmates, a young heir to the renown Arc family, Jaune, and defended him from bullies who thought him unworthy of upholding his family title.Rather than taking up a sword or a rifle, the commonest of weapons chosen among her peers, Ruby chose a scythe, one she crafted herself, to fight with.Most scoffed at that, or her perpetually cheerful demeanor.They called her brazen attitude, hubris, and her determination, silliness born of inexperience.

Then, they saw her fight.Saw the swift ruthlessness of her attacks.Only the most stubborn would refuse to change their minds about Ruby Rose.

Ruby could never bring herself to actually wear her mother’s old, white cloak—the only relic of the parent she never got the chance to know.Rather she commissioned one similar to it in all but one detail.Hers was ruby red.Others would make jokes about the cloak and the blood of her enemies, but never Ruby.For all she could be considered a brutal fighter, she was never a heartless one.

It is this attribute that made Ozpin take notice of her.He had seen many brilliant fighters pass through his academy before Ruby, but he found not many would reach a genuine hand out and help their defeated opponents stand up again.More than that, even less could inspire a spark of hope in those around them quite like she could.

Ozpin observed Ruby from afar all during her academy years.A plan began to form in his head of what he could do with her, but he did not wish to impose it on her.The ability to _choose_ is something he regarded too highly to take away from another.So, he waited, and watched.When Ruby graduated, and fully came into her own, that’s when he approached her.

War hadn’t come to Vale yet, but it was going to.Ozpin had attempted prevention with peaceful overtures, but he knew they wouldn’t last for long.It was time to make preparations for his people.

It is said, once upon a time, there existed four great Relics in the world, one in each kingdom, of untold power.Not many believe the tales anymore.Years have passed without sighting or word of such great devices.If they truly exist, people wonder, why haven’t the kingdoms’ monarchs used them to save them from Atlas?

In truth, attempts were made.

The rulers of Mistral regularly sought guidance from the Lamp of Knowledge.It is what they learned from asking it questions that most aided them in forging their treaty with Atlas.Though they kept war from their doorstep, they now live in constant fear of it returning.They have used up all three of their questions and have to wait a hundred years to have another three.

The last Vacuan King rode into battle against Atlas with the Sword of Destruction firmly held aloft in his hand.He cut down innumerable automated foes with its power.For a time, it was believed he and the sword would single-handedly push back the invaders.But utter Annihilation proves tricky to control, and there are rumors that the destruction of Vacuo’s oasis may not have been completely done by Atlesian hand.

The Staff of Creation was once the prized possession of Atlas.The only reason it did not remain so was the actions of a simple soul.An assistant in the palace’s kitchen, with the aid of his family, stole the staff and smuggled it out of the kingdom.No one in Atlas or Mantle knows where Oscar Pine went, but they do know what happened to his family at the hands of Hazel Rainhart, for refusing to give his plans up.

Ozpin remembers the day Oscar came to him clearly.The worry and fear in the young boy’s face.The knowledge of everything he had given up to get such a powerful relic away from where it, or at least what remains of it, would be abused and corrupted weighing down on him.Ozpin had done his best to help Oscar, but there are some wounds that no stranger can help heal.The only thing he’d truly been able to do was swear he’d protect what remains of the Staff of Creation from further harm.And so he had done his best.

The Staff’s condition continued to deteriorate with each passing day.Ozpin couldn’t say he knew exactly what the General King of Atlas had done to it.How he’d managed to split its crystal, or what he’d done with the missing part.Ozpin only could know of the results, the broken state of the relic in his kingdom that did not truly belong there.

For the first time of his reign, Ozpin consulted Vale’s relic, the Crown of Choice, in the hopes it could help him understand the best course of action.It didn’t.The Crown simply showed Ozpin the decision he already knew he was going to make.

He could not repair the Staff of Creation.Not without recovering its missing piece from whatever fate had befallen it.What Ozpin _could_ do was reforge its remains into something new.A final act of creation by the broken relic, and a mechanical device known as the Silver Eye was born.

The Silver Eye did not function like the relics.The only way its power could be used was if it were bonded to a person.Someone chosen and deemed worthy of the monumental task of protecting and preserving life.Ozpin made the choice, and he chose Ruby to be its guardian.She accepted.

Tragically, Ruby, to the present day, has not gotten the chance to use the Silver Eye.It was successfully bonded to her and turned her pale blue eyes the most brilliant of silvers.Yet, before she could full understand it, her girlfriend’s past caught up to her and stole them both away.

Ruby knew who Penny was before she came to Vale.On the night they admitted their love, Penny told her everything about where she came from and what her mission was in Vale.Ruby held Penny as she admitted that what she was _meant_ for and what she _wanted_ to be were two entirely separate things.Ruby promised Penny she loved her regardless.She would help her.They would forge a new future together.

The chance was stolen from them.

Later, Ruby wouldn’t really remember the attack itself.Her recollections of the event, and most of the time directly following it, would come to be vague and murky at best.The one thing that would come back to her would be being forced to kneel before the General King, as he gazed down at her like a prize.

Long had Ironwood desired to have one of the Huntsmen or Huntresses of Vale.What better weapon was there, he thought, than one plucked directly from the enemy itself?What had a better chance of outsmarting Vale’s forces than one of their own?Of course, she would need some _convincing_ , but that was hardly an issue.

Once upon a time, Ironwood had sliced off the hand of the King of Vacuo and stolen the Sword of Destruction from its failing grasp.His kingdom may have lost their original relic, but that hardly mattered to the General King.Not when he’d gained something that could aid his kingdom’s conquest far more than it.

And Ironwood’s scientists _had_ been successful in manipulating the powers of Destruction.Watts, in particular, was able to augment soldiers considerably with the dark substance the sword provided them.Controlling their newfound Grimm forces did prove difficult.Until the forging of the Salem Device, that is.A mysterious, dark, twisted crown that afforded them such an ability as to command the forces of Destruction.

It was never really a question of _if_ they’d transform Ruby, their prized, prisoner huntress, into one of these denizens, so much as it was a matter of _when_.And so, soon after her capture, Ruby Rose was lowered into one of the deep, dark Pools of Annihilation, and Destruction consumed every inch of her it could.

But, it should be known, Destruction could not consume _all_ of her.

For even then, unknown to the Atlesians who watched her transformation, the Silver Eye remained with Ruby.

It is slowly beginning to wake up.


	5. Caught in the Web of Mr. Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Content Notes: graphic imagery of spiders, violence, character death, attempted murder, stabbing, references to actual character murder, mind control/possession, comas

“Ruby?”

Penny speaks her beloved’s name over and over again.Her voice, a cracking repetition of a broken, almost hopeless recording caught on a looping tape.The mechanical girl who had come and fought so hard can do nothing but stare.She hopes the sight before her isn’t real, that she’s mistaken, that this isn’t how their story ends.

Some history books will say it is.They will narrate the story of a miserable failure of a military project.One who rebelled against her creators, her masters, and cost not only herself, but the one she loved her life.These history books will be produced in the harsh, cold printing presses that remain loyal to the faltering Atlesian throne.A desperate attempt to rewrite history in their favor, but not much more than that really.

Other books, ones with a bit more accuracy, will know better.For even if there is a ‘happily ever after’ or a ‘the end’ to a story, there’s always a moment after that.Something that happens next.Right up until the final end of death comes for the characters.

And neither Penny nor Ruby are quite dead yet.

So it really would be a sad, sorry tale that reaches its conclusion here, wouldn’t it?

The rebels infiltrate the menacing fortress to save the innocent girl and are felled by her hand, now corrupted by the darkness that had ensnared her.No hope of a happy tomorrow.Simply a brutal, violent end and a laboratory awash in blood.

For that’s what happens when you wander into a spider’s web.You tend to get caught by the spider.And, you know, eaten.

The thing, the crucial detail, that must be taken into account about this tale, though.The one thing those Atlesian history books will try to wipe away and conceal and keep the public from knowing.The little detail that keeps _this_ ending from being the true ending of the story.

It’s simply that Ruby Rose is not the spider.

Of course, she is _something_ , and historians (and, after them, archivists) will have quite a wondrous time debating amongst themselves what exactly she _is_.But, what she is _not_ , is the spider.The hungry arachnid who waits so long for its prey to come, who binds its meal tightly in silky thread for later consumption.

Some, and they will have fairly strong evidence for their cause, will argue Ruby was simply the first caught in the spider’s web.Those ones have a valid, if not entirely understanding of the circumstances as a whole, point.

A spider’s web is a sticky, tricky thing.When you’re all alone in it, you may see little hope of escape, of anything but the spider’s looming, menacing legs, its snapping jaws, or its eight dark, beady eyes.But that’s only if and when the spider chooses to focus on _you_.They are, after all, creatures that can be distracted.Ones that can decide to eat something— _someone_ —else.So, maybe Ruby was the spider’s first chosen meal, but she was one left unfinished due to the arrival of an enticing, delectable follow up.

A spider’s web also happens to be a delicate thing and, if put under too much weight, may potentially collapse.

Let us now return to the scene and become observers, ceaseless watchers, to what happens when this particular web takes on quite a bit of weight.

Are you scared yet?You’re probably wondering if you should be.It’s natural, of course.Debating whether or not you should trust the words you read.Should you stop here?What if it gets worse?But, it’s pretty bad here.Do you really want this ending to be _the_ ending?

What happens when you don’t stop, though?When you continue reading the words, bringing them into the reality of being Known?Didn’t expect to be trapped reading a tale without recourse on how to know if the true end is horrible or not without going along with it until it reaches it’s natural conclusion, did you?

Have you considered that, perhaps, it is you who is trapped in the spider’s web?

So, tell me, how much do you really want to know?You’re curious, aren’t you?Driven.Eager to witness all that happens here.Why would you remain otherwise?

Let’s see how it goes, shall we?

Our story, our _statement_ , resumes.

Ever so slowly, Ruby turns her head and looks at Penny.There is no recognition, no emotion of any kind on her face.Ruby blinks, or, rather, she closes her eyelids and opens them again in a movement that could be perceived as a blink.A movement that makes her a stranger to Penny.

“Ruby,” Penny repeats, as if the simple utterance of the name will break the spell.No such enchantment that can be so easily undone exists.Not here.Not now.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?”

New footsteps echo through the laboratory.Penny spins around.Dr. Watts makes his way over from the door.Each step he takes is measured and calculated.His past projects, those horrible menaces whispered about in fear, file into the room behind him.

Cinder looks at the scene laid out before her and smirks.Tyrian laughs.Hazel blocks the doorway with his bulk.

“For a super weapon, I expected you to be smarter than to simply walk into what was so obvious a trap.”Dr. Watts chuckles at Penny.“Foolish of me to underestimate the weakness of love, I suppose.”

“Let.Ruby.Go.”Penny clenches her fists.She raises her daggers.She doesn’t have the advantage here, but that won’t stop her.

“If you insist.”Watts waves a dismissive hand.With his other, he takes a remote out from his pocket and clicks a button on it.The clasps around Ruby’s wrists and ankles snap open.He turns to walk away, but pauses before he exits the laboratory.“Do try to leave at least some of them intact,” he tells Cinder, Tyrian, and Hazel.“It would be a pity for so many good bodies to go to waste.”He exits.

Penny turns to Ruby one last time.“Ruby…”This time it’s a begging sob that escapes her lips.“ _Please,_ no.”

Ruby stands.She reaches around herself, to the sheath attached to her belt.Her fingers wrap around the hilt of the blade there.Ruby withdraws the weapon.There’s no sign she recognizes the desperate plea in Penny’s eyes.

The sword slashes through the air.

Penny dodges.She retreats away from Ruby’s attack.Her daggers hover around her.She can’t bring herself to command them to retaliate.

“Ruby, _please_ , it’s _me_ , it’s Penny!You have to recognize me!”

Ruby draws back.For a brief, hopeful second, Penny thinks she’s gotten through to her love.A small smile appears on Penny’s lips.It almost immediately falls away.

Ruby lifts her hand not holding the sword.Around it, thick, black sludge forms.It branches out into a limb all of its own.Bleached white claws emerge at its tips, like grotesque fingers.There’s a second where the Grimm arm moves and shifts, as if adjusting to its own weight.A twisted smirk appears on Ruby’s face.She looks between her new appendage and Penny.

Penny’s daggers come to bear a defensive position in front of her without her telling them to.The Grimm arm tries to dart around them, but the daggers cut through it like butter.It disintegrates into dust.Ruby screams.Her voice is loud, hoarse, and pained.Penny hesitates, doesn’t take the opening.She can’t… she doesn’t…she needs to…but it’s Ruby! _RUBY_!

She can’t just _kill_ her.Penny glances behind her, at where she knows her team is, but there is no aid to be found there.Cinder, Tyrian, and Hazel are on the attack.The less said about that carnage, the better.Penny is on her own.She turns back to Ruby and, with every fiber of her being protesting, she prepares to fight.

_I’ll make it quick,_ Penny tells Ruby in her head. _You don’t deserve this suffering.I’m sorry.I’m so, so sorry._

Penny ducks Ruby’s sword, and feigns to the left.

_I’m sorry that this is how it ends._

Penny commands her daggers to cut through the Grimm limbs Ruby keeps painfully forming and sending at her.She refuses to allow herself to wince at the agonizing screams.

_I’m sorry you didn’t get to live a long and happy life._

Penny sees her opening.Ruby has faltered.Penny allows herself a second to take a breath, and then she lunges.Her daggers all are pointed forward, ready to complete the death blow.

_I’m sorry you ever had the misfortune of knowing me._

Penny’s killing blow doesn’t make its target.Ruby faked her out.Midway into Penny’s attack, she dodges.Penny has no time to change course.Her eyes widen.Ruby’s Grimm limbs surround Penny, grab her, hold her.

Horror takes over Penny’s face.She knows what’s going to happen right before the final Grimm arm makes the plunge into her chest.Her mind goes blank with the pain.Whether or not she’s screaming, Penny has no idea.

Ruby’s darkness, her corruption, seeps into Penny, worming its way to the mechanical girl’s heart, her core.For Penny can only be destroyed if it is.The Annihilation reaches its target.It circles its prey, completely surrounding it.It surges in for the kill.

In that dreadful moment, Death _doesn’t_ come.It was never going to.It has, shall we say, a _feel_ , for these things.It knew, all throughout this battle, how it would end.Death knew it would not be necessary to send its Reaper here.

The Silver Eye, which had protecting Ruby’s soul and had waited and waited and watched for its opportunity finally found its chance.When the Grimm entombing it reached out to destroy the one its guardian loved, the Silver Eye, for the first time in its existence, _felt_ something.

Remember, the Eye, on its own, had never been a _whole_.It was forged, by the King of Vale, out of the remaining half of the Staff of Creation.Though it could exist on its own, it never truly stopped longing to find its missing, stolen part.And, when its prison made that final, _almost_ deadly attack, through those dark tendrils ensnaring it, the Silver Eye finally felt that echo, that reverberation, that it had ached for for so very long.

In that moment, it wakes up and _reaches_.

Blinding silver light shines out through the laboratory.Every vestige of Annihilation’s power, every bit of Grimm, inside a person or out, is disintegrated.For those who have long since opened their arms to Destruction and allowed its influence into themselves, this means Death finally comes for its dues.For Ruby, who the Silver Eye loves and cherishes, this means purification from her corruption.For Penny, this means her life is spared and, from within her, the Silver Eye is answered.

Once upon a time, the General King of Atlas found the blueprints for an old inventor’s creation.He saw it as a grand opportunity to build a great weapon for the glory of his kingdom.To fuel it, he saw no better resource than his kingdom’s relic itself.He split the Staff of Creation in half, stored one part away for later use and fashioned the other into a core for the new automaton.

Unbeknownst to him, in doing this, the General King created a mirror to the Silver Eye; the Winter Soul.A new entity all of its own, it was.One curious, fascinated about the world around it, and ever so willing to learn.

Is it such a shock then, that was built to be a weapon of immeasurable power turned its back to this objective and instead chose to attempt to understand and love the world it found itself in?Is it such a shock that it came to love one who would be later chosen to preserve life itself?

Much has been written and recorded about the Fall of Atlas.There are numerous accounts of the sudden surge of blinding light that shone across the kingdom.Many theorize, but they do not know the truth of its source.What they do know is that it wiped out the city’s mainframe and, for the first time in history, Atlas was left vulnerable.It didn’t take long for the Rebellion’s ships to rise from Mantle and begin that final, gruesome attack after that.

Later, the Rebellion’s charge into Atlas Academy, of their slaughter of the robotic forces of the Atlesian Military, will be dramatized into something far more glorious and far less bloody than it was.The retellings will focus on the storming of the throne room, of the General King being forced to his knees in surrender, the capture of the notorious Dr. Watts.They will applaud the victories of the day, and blatantly ignore the executions of the weeks to follow.

And so, Atlas’s web of power collapses, crumpling into a thousand twisting, tangled threads.The spider, the warmonger, who sat at its center, weaving and warping the world into something that suited him and only him, and growing fat off the results, is squashed.

Those two who were responsible, who gave the world the chance it needed to rid itself of the boot pressing down upon its throat, they were never known.

For Ruby, now saved from the Grimm but forever scarred by it, looks down upon the sleeping form of her fallen beloved, sees the full extent of Penny’s injuries, gathers her up in her arms, and steals her away to where she can be repaired.

In peace.


	6. The Tale of Little Briar and the Huntress in the Cottage

Every child in Patch knows of the Huntress who lives in the cottage on the outskirts of town.Their great protector, who keeps the dangers of the woods at bay so they can go about their lives safely.No one knows, not really, where she came from.The youngest kids among them generally want to ask, but their parents usually shush them before they can try.It’s considered improper, prying into what should be left well enough alone.

Briar knows more about the Huntress than any of her peers, but you’d never catch her boasting about it in the school yard.No sir.She can keep a secret extremely well, she can.Well that, and she doesn’t want the Huntress to be upset with her and ask her father to not allow her to make the weekly deliveries anymore.Briar loves visiting the Huntress’s cottage, with its duck pond and its thick bramble of roses.But, most importantly, she loves being let inside and allowed to watch the Huntress work for just a little while.

For, in addition to being their protector against the scary monsters that lurk in the woods, the Huntress is Patch’s one and only mechanic.There used to be more, of course, but that was back before Briar was born and they all got called off to fight in the Great War against Atlas.

Briar once asked if the Huntress fought in the Great War, too.She remembers how the Huntress fell silent, the gloomy expression that had seamlessly eclipsed the Huntress’s entire being, and quietly swore never to ask again.It’s not important for her to know, Briar decided.Not like learning how gears, cogs, and screws all fit into machinery and make things like the big clock in the tower in the center of town work.

It’s a sunny day.A few wisps of clouds linger in the sky, but not many.Briar skips home from school, humming a happy tune of her own creation as she goes.She briefly pauses to scratch the noses of the cows who’ve wandered to the fence of their pasture bordering the road.The cows moo at her and sniff Briar’s fingertips for treats.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything for you today.”Briar giggles as their chin whiskers tickle her.“If I have time after I visit Ms. Rose, I’ll try and bring you all back something, but I make no promises.”

She continues on her way, only stopping in the Mech Field to pick a collection of bright, cheerful wildflowers.Briar pauses to consider the ruins of the old war machines, but Ms. Rose once warned her very sternly not to get too close to the fallen mechs without her supervision, so Briar doesn’t.Instead, she takes a spare hair ribbon out of her school bag, ties it snugly around the stems of her wildflowers to keep them properly bunched together, and heads home.

Her mother has the weekly grocery basket for Ms. Rose waiting when Briar arrives.She helps Briar securely fasten it to the deliveries bicycle and situate the flower bouquet on top so the bumpy ride won’t jostle them too much.

“Keep an eye on the time,” Briar’s mother gives her the usual warning.“And, if it starts growing dark, have Ms. Rose walk you home.”

Briar rolls her eyes.She’s big enough to come home all on her own, even after sunset, she thinks.Still, she promises, “I will!” before taking off on the bicycle.

Smoke lazily drifts into the sky from Ms. Rose’s cottage’s chimney as Briar makes her approach.The huntress’s dog, a great, big creature with a lumbering gait and a lolling tongue, appropriately named ‘Wolf’, runs to greet Briar as she approaches.She slows her bicycle to a stop and dismounts.

“Hey, Wolfie.”Briar scratches behind the dog’s ears, and gets licked enthusiastically for it.She laughs.Wolf dances excited circles around Briar as she walks over and leans her bicycle against the cottage.“Stop that!”Briar commands Wolf, only half serious.“I have to get the groceries inside!”She nudges the door open and walks into the cottage.

“Ms. Rose?Are you here?”Briar calls out.

“In the workshop, Briar!”Ms. Rose yells back from somewhere deep inside.Briar grins.With some care, she shoves the groceries in the refrigerator.Ms. Rose will organize them however she pleases later, after a few more hours of work, at least.

Briar goes to hurry through the kitchen, but remembers herself, and pauses at the sink to fill a pitcher with water for her wildflower bouquet.She carefully lowers the flowers in and unties her hair ribbon from around their stems.Then, after tidying the bouquet a little, Briar walks further into the cottage.She doesn’t go immediately to the workshop, but to a room Ms. Rose only recently granted her permission to enter.

Briar pauses and takes a breath in the doorway of the bedroom.It’s always a bit weird to do this.She’s never actually _met_ Ms. Penny.Not back before, when she was _awake_.Ms. Penny doesn’t know who she is.Never had the chance to, really.

Regardless, flowers always make Briar feel better when she isn’t feeling well.With Wolf padding loyally at her side, Briar approaches the bed where Ms. Penny serenely sleeps and situates the bouquet on the table beside it.

“Good day, Ms. Penny,” Briar speaks politely, for she’s never spoken to a mechanical person, or one who’s never woken up, before Penny.Briar still feels kind of odd about that, but, since she first stumbled across Penny’s room, she’s been determined to try and make her feel better (if that’s at all possible).

“Spring’s here.The first of Mr. Oobleck’s lambs were born the other day.”Briar starts her usual, short, babbling update about life in Patch.“They’re extremely cute.I’ll draw you a picture, so, when you wake up, you won’t have missed seeing them.”

“She’d like that, I think.”

Briar jumps, and spins around.Ms. Rose stands in the doorway, leaning against its frame.She smiles softly at Briar, and joins her by Penny’s bedside.“Penny never…I think she always lived in cities before we met.”Ms. Rose takes a deep breath.“I’m not sure she’s ever gotten the chance to see a newborn lamb.”

“Then this will be her first time,” Briar says confidently.

“Yes.”Ms. Rose smiles sadly down at Briar.“Run along to the workshop now.I left today’s assignment out on the table for you.Try to see if you can get started on your own.I’ll be along in a moment.”

Briar does as she’s told, but not before stopping just outside the bedroom and sneakily poking her head back in to watch Ms. Rose gently smooth Penny’s long, soft copper curls and place a kiss on her forehead.

“Don’t wait too much longer to wake up, my love, alright?”Ms. Rose whispers.

Briar slips away, feeling a little guilty about spying on such a private moment.She doesn’t know _why_ Ms. Penny sleeps, what caused her to fall into her lasting slumber in the first place, but Briar does know that Ms. Rose came to Patch to have a quiet, safe place to repair her.

The assignment Ms. Rose set out for Briar that day is a small music box.One that had, in all likeliness, played a lovely melody at some point, but has long since worn out.Repairing it shouldn’t be the hardest of tasks.Not now that Briar is a handful of months out of transitioning from ‘kid who gets to watch the Huntress work’ to ‘unofficial mechanic’s apprentice’.

Ever so carefully, Briar removes a tiny, rusty gear from the music box with her tweezers and sets it aside.She looks to Ms. Rose, who smiles reassuringly back at her.Briar finds the replacement gear, plucks it up with the tweezers, and goes to insert it right where it needs to—

“Hello?!Huntress are you here?”A voice shouts into the cottage.Wolf scrambles up from lying under where Briar’s feet dangle off her stool and barks loudly.Briar jumps.Her tweezers fall out of her hand.The replacement gear goes flying.

“Just a moment!”Ms. Rose calls back.She helps Briar retrieve the gear from where it’s fallen to the floor.“Think you can work on your own for a bit?”Ms. Rose asks.When Briar nods, the huntress wipes grease and oil smudges off her fingertips onto her leather apron and goes to see who has come asking after her aid.

Briar half listens to the ensuing conversation about a broken down car on the road as it drifts through the cottage to her.Ms. Rose briefly returns to the workshop for her portable tool kit, and then leaves to go repair the automobile in question.She promises she’ll check Briar’s handiwork upon her return.Wolf ambles back over to Briar.The dog circles a couple times to settle, and then returns to napping.

For the next couple of hours while Briar works, things are quiet and peaceful.She finishes repairing the music box.With bated breath, Briar winds it up and sets it down on the worktable.A soft tune fills the air.Briar can’t help but smile.

Too excited to wait until Ms. Rose gets back to show off her success, Briar carefully scoops the music box up in her hands and carries it to Penny’s room.She puts it down by the wildflowers she brought earlier, and lets it play its song a second time.

So caught up on listening to the music box’s melody is Briar, she doesn’t catch when it’s joined by the sounds of other mechanisms whirling and clicking.Ones that have long remained at rest, but, at the sound of a comforting song, rouse again.

Movement catches Briar’s attention.Before she realizes what’s happened, a pair of bright, dazzling green eyes meet her own.They almost seem to glow, as if they’re lightbulbs that have spent a long, long time charging up and want to celebrate the chance to finally illuminate.

“H-hello?”The voice is hoarse, creaky with disuse.It’s nothing like Briar imagined it would be.“Briar?”

Briar blinks rapidly.“You know me?” slips from her lips before she can stop the question.

“Of course.”Tentatively, Penny moves to push herself up in a sitting position.One of her hands slips before she can put weight down on it.Briar rushes forward to help support her.“Thank you.”Penny smiles gratefully at Briar.“To answer your question, I heard you.The days you came and talked to me and brought me flowers.”She pauses.“I’d very much like to see Mr. Oobleck’s lambs.”

“Oh.”Briar takes a minute to process this.“I didn’t think…” she’s not sure what to say.She’s imagined this moment hundreds of times, but, now that it’s happening, Briar’s mind is frustratingly blank.

“It’s alright.”Penny gives her a small, soft smile.“It’s not everyday someone you’ve only known as a ‘sleeping lady’ wakes up.”

“I-err-yeah…” Briar pauses.“If you don’t mind me asking, how could you hear me all those times?Since you were asleep?”

Penny inhales deeply and exhales, the clockwork of her body moving with the motion.“It’s a bit complicated.A short explanation would be that, even without enough power to function normally, I could still record audio.” Penny shoots a knowing smirk in Briar’s direction.“I would love to give you the fully detailed explanation. _Later_.If you don’t mind, there’s someone who’s long overdue for a hug, I think.”

Briar’s eyes widen.“Oh!Ms. Rose!Of course!”She scrambles up to fetch Penny a walking stick to lean upon as she gets up.“She went out to repair someone’s car.I think it’s just down the road!”Briar hovers, ready to support Penny if she needs help with walking.When Penny makes it to the doorway on her own, Briar relaxes a little.

Together, with Wolf keeping pace with them (and Briar would swear the dog is keeping as much a careful eye on Penny as she herself is), they make their way outside.

Penny pauses, and looks up at the blue, blue sky.She blinks.If she were capable of crying, she probably would have.“I never dreamed I’d see it again.”Penny whispers.She turns to look ahead, down the road she and Briar intend to walk, and sees someone coming toward them on it.Penny gasps.

There is one sight that Penny dreamed of, _longed_ for, during her oh so very long slumber.One sight, her vague, ethereal thoughts could never quite capture, but tried to constantly.The person she sees on the road doesn’t quite fit the picture Penny remembers.The person is no longer a youthful maiden, but a full grown woman.Her black-red hair is longer, kept in an untidy braid over one shoulder.She’s wearing the garb of a mechanic, and not combat dress.Branching scars, leftover from a (Grimm) time Penny would very much like to leave in the past, dance across her skin.

“ _Ruby_.”

Penny breathes the name out at the same time Ruby sees her, stops, and stares.

A moment passes where no one moves, where the world is held frozen in shock.Anxiety ripples over Ruby’s face.Worry that needs no verbal words to describe it.That Penny won’t love this older version of her.That this person she had to grow into while she patiently waited for Penny to wake up isn’t someone Penny will be able to bring herself to love.

Penny takes a step forward, and then another.Her walking stick is cast aside as she recalls how to push her legs into motion as fast as she can.She runs, reaching Ruby in the blink of an eye.Eager to vanquish all the anxieties she sees in her beloved, Penny takes Ruby up in her arms and spins her around and around.She laughs, causing Ruby to laugh with relief too.

They’re together.Nothing, no war or conflict or spiders who want to control them, can get in the way of that any longer.They may have once been puppets in a grand scheme, but they’re free now.Free to do whatever they wish, as long as they wish.

Penny stops spinning Ruby around.She holds her close, drinking in the sight of Ruby’s sparkling, silver eyes.Without thinking about it, they press their foreheads together and simply gaze at each other.

Later, they’ll let Briar commit a condensed version of their story down on paper.A fairytale, it will be.One only a handful will actually believe there’s truth to, but that’s just as well to them.Right now, this moment?This moment is just for them.

Ruby wraps her arms around Penny.Penny leans in.Their lips find each other.Tentative, unsure, aware they have a lot to adjust to again with each other (but eager to get started).The kiss is soft and sweet.A promise of many, _many_ more to come.

They don’t live happily ever after.For Penny and Ruby’s story doesn’t end here.It goes on, with many days full of love, and equally as many filled with struggle as they learn each other’s embrace again.There are moments when the scars of the past threaten to consume them, and moments filled with nothing but laughter and joy.

Overall, though?

Penny and Ruby live together for a very, very long time, and that time together is largely marked by their shared happiness.


End file.
